Chapter 7
Laundry, St Elmo Ghost Town, and Travel

Today started off with a "Bakery Breakfast". That's where we go to a local bakery and load up on donuts, muffins, danish, and other sordid <not a typo> pastries along with some low-fat milk. Then we go to a local park, find a picnic table, and enjoy our breakfast alfresco.

Then it's down to the serious business of laundry. After a stop at a bank for a roll of quarters, Diane uses the Laundromat while I drape the tent parts, rain fly, and ground cloth over the car to dry and air out in the sunshine.

Then its a casual drive south to the town of Salida and another motel. Along the way we pass by the Collegiate Peaks. All along the highway we pass by 14,000 ft peaks off to the west. We also stop by the ghost town of St. Elmo. It used to be a gold and silver mining town back in the 1880's, but now most of the residents have left and there's only about 7 full time residents living there. The old structures are all privately owned so you can't walk thru them, but you can walk down the sidewalk and check out the local country store, the antique dealer, and the ATV rental shop. There appeared to be a good business renting out ATV's to tourists who would then follow old 4-wheel drive jeep roads up into the surrounding mountains to visit scenic mountain passes and old mining sites.

Views up and down the streets of the St. Elmo ghost town.

The few town residents are in somewhat of a Catch-22 situation. It seems that they're not real fond of tourists poking about their town, but they like the tourist dollars and donations to help rebuild some of their old buildings that were destroyed in a fire.